


The Poetry of Change

by 221brosiewilde



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Denial of Feelings, Kitchen Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:32:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221brosiewilde/pseuds/221brosiewilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having sex with Jim Moriarty, Sebastian thinks, is like letting go of the last steady handhold in a hurricane. Or, the one where Sebastian and Jim have sex, and neither of them have feelings for each other. Nope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Poetry of Change

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know where this came from. This was meant to be a never to be published character study, but suddenly I was writing smut and editing things and posting it, so…here you go.

They’re lying together one night, naked and still too hot from their activity only moments before, when Sebastian opens his mouth and says, “This doesn’t mean I need you.”

Jim laughs, and laughs.

The next day, they get up and shower (separately) like they’re not lovers. They get ready for the day as if they hadn’t been desperate and aching last night, as if they hadn’t fallen asleep wrapped in each other, and drifted off to the sound of the others breathing. Sebastian just wordlessly hands Jim his tea, and listens as he rattles off an insurmountable number of jobs that need to be done by the end of the day. He doesn’t pause in turning the page of his newspaper when Jim passes by with a lingering touch at the small of his back. His fingertips feel like a brand, and Sebastian wishes there was a deeper burn so he’d have something to carry with him throughout the day. Jim doesn’t stop his diatribe about how much he hates working with Russians when Sebastian leans in to fix his tie either, and the feeling that they’re finally on equal footing is deceptive, so he rinses it away when he puts his breakfast plate in the sink.

'Nothing changes' becomes his motto.

Except it does.

Sebastian’s not just the bodyguard anymore. And Jim’s not just the boss. Things have shifted.

Instead of scowling when he catches Sebastian looking at him, now Jim leans back, beckoning him closer. He lets Sebastian slide his hands under his suits, lets him leave marks on his body that may or may not be permanent, depending on which plan Jim is set on for his death, and on which day you’d ask him.

And Sebastian is always looking, even more so now.

Jim Moriarty would have everyone believe that he’s the scholar, the schemer, the untouchable fairy tale villain in a suit with a voice from nowhere, and eyes like the bottom of a well. He has half the UK wrapped around his finger, and a dozen men buildings children rigged to explode on a whim. He carves physics equations and constellations into dead bodies, alive bodies, and laughs to himself while he does it. He’s a psychopath and no one is more aware of it than Sebastian.

But there are ticks that even Jim can’t hide for long, and Sebastian isn’t as unobservant as he’d have people to believe.

He picks up on things.

He follows the way Jim’s eyes light upon the most expensive, the shiniest things, and hears the way his accent changes depending on which language he’d been speaking last. He listens to Jim’s voice when he’s close to orgasm, unable to keep away the lower middle class Irish accent when he’s so open, so vulnerable. Sebastian knows when he’s about to have something thrown at him, and when calm actually means calm or when it means something else. 

"I don’t think anyone’s ever told me they love me," Jim murmurs one night against the back of Sebastian’s neck, arm wrapped tightly across his chest, and his leg thrown over his thigh. They don’t do this often, just sleeping together, but Sebastian had walked into his room to find Jim under the blankets, working on his laptop. And he wasn’t stupid enough to try to kick him out so here they were. This is new though. He knows better than to rise to the occasion, or believe that the tears he feels against his skin are anything more than a ploy to get him to say something that Jim knows anyway even if he’s never actually vocalized it.

For everything that Sebastian knows some about Jim, Jim knows a thousand and one more little details about Sebastian, and the reminder raises goosebumps on his arms.

"Go to sleep."

"Do you love me, Sebastian?" He’d almost believe it too, the pathetic, pleading tone, if he couldn’t feel the smile against the top of his spine, teeth bared in unrepentant jest.

He doesn’t say anything, just lets his silence do the talking, and silence was always just as good as an affirmation in Jim’s opinion.

The arm around him tightens for a moment, short nails digging into old scars before Jim relaxes, and his breathing evens out, asleep for the first time in who knows when.

Nothing changes.

But the sex starts to become a regular thing. It goes from hurried hand jobs in empty warehouses to sucking each other off against the door of the flat after a hit, to making out on the couch and rubbing against each other until their underwear is completely ruined. He wonders when something will give, or change, but Jim is just as fickle when it comes to sex as he is about everything else. Sebastian never knows when he’ll be pulled closer or pushed away, so he stops trying. He lets Jim call the shots, and nothing happens between them for nearly two months.

He’s almost given up until one day he’s out grocery shopping and notices ‘lube and condoms’ added to the bottom of the list in Jim’s spidery scrawl, next to scribbled hearts and a very lewd depiction of the two of them as stick figures. It had given Sebastian pause at first, but then, like always, he’d obeyed.

Having sex with Jim was like letting go of his last steady handhold in the middle of a hurricane.

Not that Sebastian had ever believed in that sex equals love bullshit, but there’s something about seeing someone so powerful, so in control, stripped and bare and desperate for it. The first time, Sebastian tops, and Jim is everything at once during sex; as if he doesn’t know who to be. He’s simultaneously commanding, and begging, pushing away and clawing back in, until Sebastian learns to stop trying to take control and just go with it, give him what he needs. It’s a heady experience, knowing that he’s better at something than Jim is, because Jim’s never been able to give himself the things he needs, and letting go is definitely one of those things.

It’s not until later, when Jim is actually sleeping, back against Sebastian’s chest, that he realizes he’d go to the ends of the earth if it was what Jim really needed.

He closes his eyes, and sighs, willing nothing changes to be true.

Crime in London booms quietly, moves through the city’s underbelly like a parasitic worm, silent and always feeding off the host. Sebastian waits on rooftops, for minutes, hours, on one memorable occasion, an entire day. Jim plots, talks through phones and computers and other people, practices being someone else like it’s an art. They order Thai food almost every night even though Sebastian fucking hates Thai, and in return Jim sucks him off against the kitchen counter.

It’s not bliss, Sebastian tells himself as Jim is leaning over the trash bin, lips almost comically pursed in disgust as he spits. It’s just the orgasm aftershocks making him feel sleepy and sentimental. Biology. That’s all.

But he still protests when Jim catches him off guard, turns him around, and kicks his legs apart, the smile evident in his voice though his accent is unfamiliar. Midwest. American.

"Spread em, tiger."

Sebastian growls and braces his forearms against the counter top, weighing his options. Pushing Jim away would be easy. He could overpower him with no problem, but the sulk afterwards probably wouldn’t be worth it. And the fight would only end up with him in the same position anyway, except he’d be coming away from it more sore than if he just agreed now. He sighs, grimacing when he feels a dry finger enter him before the sharp click of a cap being opened. “If you fuck me dry again, so help me- Oh…” he stops, shifting slightly against the second finger being pushed into him, slick. “What is that?”

"Olive oil."

"Christ."

"We’re in the kitchen," Jim says, sounding surprisingly chipper for someone whose throat has just been thoroughly fucked. Sebastian feels him curl his fingers up, and the sound that escapes him is one he’ll definitely feel embarrassed about later. When there aren’t fingers in his ass, stroking…god. “I don’t feel like watching you give me sad puppy eyes every time you sit down, so I’m being creative. Deal with it.”

"How…ah…gracious of you,” Sebastian manages to grind out, and Jim moves his fingers again, adding a third a little too quickly. Sebastian bites his lip, caught between cursing at the burn of his muscles, and moaning from the pressure being skillfully applied to his prostate. Even though he’s joking, it’s still not like Jim to do this; to take his time and make sure he’s actually well stretched before just shoving his cock into him. It’s new, and even though Sebastian knows he won’t be able to come again a second time without any pain involved it’s still…sweet. For Jim, anyway.

He’s not sure how comfortable he is with that.

Jim laughs, and twists his fingers cruelly, drawing Sebastian out of his thoughts with a come hither motion deep inside of him. “Relax. It’s not a declaration of love or anything,” he says, and reaches down to undo his jeans. Sebastian can hear the sound of the zipper coming down and he takes a deep breath, preparing himself as Jim starts to press into him. Slowly. The hands on his hips dig in, pushing on bone and marking the place for bruises to make their appearance later.

Suddenly, Jim’s voice is in his ear, low and breathless.

"Unless you want it to be."

And just like that, he’s hard.

"You’re so easy." Jim’s laugh is cruel, like wind chimes being replaced with an ambulance siren, and he thrusts into Sebastian, barely giving him time to adjust before proceeding to fuck him mercilessly. Sebastian holds onto the edge of the counter, and reaches down, stroking himself in time with Jim’s thrusts, trying not to wince. He’s still sensitive from coming only a few minutes before, but Jim’s cock is brushing his prostate with every push in, and he knows it’s only a matter of time before he comes solely from that anyway. It hurts. It’s pathetic. And he knows that he’s been beaten, but there are worse ways to accept defeat.

"You’re one to talk," he says after a minute. He can tell Jim’s close anyway, if the way his movements are becoming more erratic are anything to go by, so he plays dirty. He presses his chest against the counter, canting his hips up. The movement has them both moaning in unison, and Sebastian smirks to himself before he concentrates on the feeling of Jim sliding in and out of him, the sound of skin on skin and Jim’s breathless curses nearly driving him mad.

"Fuck."

"Oh god, yes."

He’s openly whimpering against the skin of his wrist, too on edge to care about how much flack he’s going to get from Jim for it later, when he feels the criminal’s hand slide away from his hip and wrap around the one on his cock. Jim strokes him once, at the same time thrusts into him hard enough to push him against the counter, and just like that Sebastian’s going over the edge, gasping Jim’s name like a prayer, vision going white around the edges, the mix of pleasure-pain dragging him down.

When he comes back to himself, seconds, minutes, hours later, Jim’s forehead is pressed to his spine, his breathing heavy. He doesn’t want to move. Jim is limp and the intermittent warmness of his breath on Sebastian’s back is a comfort that he’s willing to indulge in for a while. He’s already proven himself to be stupidly sentimental enough. It was almost freeing. In a way.

Though he does have to admit that the come drying on the back of his thighs is a bit more than he’d really like to deal with right now.

He nudges Jim with his elbow, and though he grunts irritably, he takes the hint and pulls out gingerly. There’s the sound of fabric shifting, and then a zipper being pulled up. Warm lips land on the base of Sebastian’s neck, and he can’t help but lean into them like a dog leaning into its master’s touch. He’s such a goner.

"Go get a shower," Jim murmurs, sounding pleased with himself, and the lips are gone just as unexpectedly as they’d come in the first place. There’s a brief touch to where they’d been joined only a few moments ago, fingers spreading the wetness and dipping in just slightly before they too are gone, a brief, but fond, squeeze to his bicep, and a voice in his ear, low and purely Irish.

"Your pad Thai will be waiting for you when you get back."

"You are such a cunt." Sebastian scowls, and sits up, kicking his jeans off amidst Jim’s peals of amused laughter. He picks up his clothes, and stalks away to the bathroom, unable to hide a smile at Jim’s glee. It was infectious.

"I’ll save some extra peanut sauce for you, darling."

“Fuck you.”

"Mm, maybe later."

Nothing changes, Sebastian reminds himself. Nothing at all. He will never say it, even if it kills him.

But then again, he realizes, turning the water on, feeling the surprise on his face as the thought dawns on him, neither will Jim.


End file.
